[Editor's Note: Sorry for the confusion. This article came to me with words missing, although they showed up on the writer's end, but not the editor's. I hate to blame it on Tech, but I can't see another viable excuse!)

America and the Law of Identity

By Michael Russell

The 2020 election represents an unprecedented, if predictable and inevitable, clash between ideologically opposite political positions. For the past three years this clash has monopolistically been misrepresented by major news outlets, resulting in countless benevolent Americans feeling vilified, alienated, frustrated, angry, even guilty. Throughout this period, however, an expression often repeated by the political left reveals the true and simple nature of the conflict.

That expression, variously phrased by various speakers, is personal shame "to be an American."

But what defines "being an American"? What, more fundamentally, is the definition of America?

Is it self-evident and universally understood? A matter of personal opinion? An expedient used to evoke an emotional-political response? Or is it specific, delimited, and objective?

Do mountains, rivers, lakes, or amber waves of grain make America, America? What about her climate, culture, flag, national anthem, industry, indigenous inhabitants, armed forces, citizenry, or spirit?

No. Like trim on a building or clothing on a man, these attributes derive from or are peripheral to our nation's foundation, framework, and soul.

America is, comprehensively and exclusively, defined by her Declaration of Independence and Constitution. With singular wisdom and deliberation she was created to be, and to endure as, an entity unique in all the world. If and when America ceases to be that entity – a constitutional republic sculpted from the bedrock of sovereign independence – she will cease to be America.

The concept is as clean as the Law of Identity. Just as A can only be A, America can only be America. When what defines America as created no longer exists – whether annulled by innocent error, incremental betrayal, or overnight putsch – the thing that takes its place can no longer be called America.

Complainers "ashamed to be American" – along with their comrades in journalism, politics, entertainment, and social media who publicly defame America's founding principles – have either failed to recognize the definition of America or are, by choice, not American. Contrarily, they are spiritless weaklings unwilling to rise to the standard of a free independent citizenry, or worse: the want-to-be rulers of spiritless weaklings.

America's defining principles are for both groups not an inspiration, but a reminder of personal impotence. Their lives, they believe, require not that they become more, but that they make America less. Their response to what makes America, America, is not to honor her requisite virtues, but to twist them into whatever fits their need to be servants and masters, recipients and distributors of the unearned, crash survivors voting on who next to eat for dinner.

They don't want to pursue happiness – they want it handed to them. They don't want to achieve liberty – it's too great an imposition and too much trouble to maintain. They reject the right to free speech because an open exchange of ideas threatens their propaganda. They reject the right to bear arms because an armed citizenry can defend itself against them.

In short, they don't want to be American. It requires too much independence, responsibility, integrity, self-esteem – too much of what it originally meant to "be an American. They want A to be non-A while evading even the responsibility of calling the non-A by a new name. Their sole ambition is to play musical chairs with reality in the hope that someone else, anyone else, will be left without a chair when the music stops.

The Biden-Harris campaign bus flaunts a slogan summarizing what the 2020 presidential election will numerically determine. It reads: "Battle for the Soul of America." Unlike the usual reverse-projection-accusation technique employed by Leftists, this traveling pronouncement is intended literally. As with their "ashamed to be American" complaint, they bait us with a word assumed to be self-evidently definable – "soul" – then compound their deceit by implying that the benign "for" does not in fact mean "to control" or "to destroy."

The Left has at last been cornered into openly identifying its collectivist agenda, thereby imposing a modicum of integrity upon its functionaries. Since reimagining the freest, the most productive, the most life-honoring nation on earth as a socialist/ communist/ fascist haven requires eradicating America qua America, perhaps the Left can again be cornered into choosing an honest moniker for its vision. Clintonia, Antifaschtan, Kamalaland, The Biden Barrens, United Emirates of Pelosi, AOCtopia, and Zuckerburgh, for example, are currently available. Ballots for the 2024 election could feature a multiple-choice "Renaming List" to give the new underclass a reason to believe that their lives matter. Participants could receive something for free. Non-participants could be detained for reeducation. President Harris' handlers could oversee the process.

Or … Americans could vote exclusively on the basis of a candidate's demonstrated willingness to stand for America, and from that day hence take seriously their right – their personal responsibility – to defend what defines America.